by Paul Sussman
'Fifteen.'
'Fifteen, twenty – what does it matter? Too long to be worrying about it, that's the point. You spend too much time with your head stuck in the past. You should come up for air once in a while.'
He turned to Khalifa, glowering, an expression that, topped as it was with the toupee, didn't quite come off, like someone trying to be serious with a flattened rodent sitting on his head. In any other situation Khalifa would have struggled to contain his laughter. Today, he barely noticed the wig, so focused was he on what he was trying to say.
'But sir—'
'The present!' Hassani shouted, striding forward and positioning himself, arms crossed, beneath a framed photograph of President Hosni Mubarak, a stance he always adopted when he was about to deliver a homily. 'That's where our work is, Khalifa. The here and now. There are crimes being committed every day, every hour of every day, and those are what we should be concentrating on, not something that happened a decade or more ago. Something that was solved at the time, I should add!'
His brow knitted momentarily, as if he wasn't quite convinced this last sentence made sense. It passed almost immediately and, puffing out his chest, he jabbed a finger at Khalifa, who was sitting on a low chair in front of his desk.
'It's always been your problem. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times – a complete inability to focus on the present. Too much time poking around in museums, that's what does it. Tutankhamun this, Antenaben that—'
'Akhenaten,' corrected Khalifa.
'There you go again! Who cares what his fucking name was! The past is over and done with, finished, irrelevant. Today, that's what's important.'
Khalifa's fascination with the ancient past had always been a bone of contention between the two men; that and the fact that he was one of the few policemen in the station who refused to be intimidated by Hassani. Why the chief should have such a disregard for history, an aversion even, Khalifa had never discovered, although he suspected it was because he knew nothing about it and was therefore at a disadvantage whenever the conversation turned that way. Whatever the case, it was always the thing Hassani brought up whenever he wanted to browbeat Khalifa, as if detective work and an interest in his country's heritage were somehow incompatible.
'Wouldn't they just love it!' Hassani was shouting, working himself up into a lather. 'The pimps and the thieves and the fraudsters. Wouldn't they just be so happy if we spent all our time pissing around with cases that were finished fifteen years ago while they were left in peace to get on with their pimping and thieving and . . .' He paused for an instant, searching for the right word. 'Fraudering!' he cried eventually. 'Oh yes, wouldn't they just love it! We'd be a fucking laughing stock!'
The vein beside his eye was pulsing more furiously than ever, a plump green worm wriggling about beneath his skin. Khalifa pulled out his cigarettes and, bending forward, lit one, staring down at the floor.
'It's possible there might have been a grave miscarriage of justice,' he said quietly, drawing on his cigarette, craving the nicotine, the focus and clarity it gave him. 'Not definite, but certainly possible. And whether it was fifteen years ago or thirty years ago I think we have a duty to investigate it.'
'But what evidence have you got?' cried Hassani. 'What evidence, man? I know you've never been one to let facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory, but I'll need more than just a "possibly maybe".'
'Like I said, there's nothing definite—'
'Nothing at all, you mean!'
'There are similarities.'
'There are similarities between my wife and fucking water buffalo, but that doesn't mean she sits in a pool of her own shit eating palm leaves all day!'
'Too many similarities for it to be mere coincidence,' continued Khalifa, speaking over his boss, refusing to be beaten down. 'Piet Jansen was involved in the murder of Hannah Schlegel. I know it. I know it!'
He could feel his own voice rising and, clenching his knee with one hand, took a deep pull on the cigarette to steady himself.
'Look,' he said, trying to keep his tone slow and measured. 'Hannah Schlegel was murdered at Karnak. Jansen lived beside Karnak.'
'So do a thousand other people,' snorted Hassani. 'And five thousand people visit the place every day. What are you saying? They're all involved?'
Khalifa ignored the question and pressed on.
'The ankh and rosette decoration on the pommel of Jansen's cane match the impact-marks that were found on Schlegel's face and skull. Those marks were never properly accounted for.'
Hassani waved his hand dismissively.
'There are thousands of objects with that sort of design on them. Tens of thousands. It's too tenuous, Khalifa. Too tenuous by far.'
Again, the detective ignored his boss and pressed on.
'Schlegel was an Israeli Jew. Jansen hated Jews.'
'For God's sake, Khalifa! After what they've done to the Palestinians everyone in Egypt hates fucking Jews. What are we going to do? Bring the entire population in for questioning?'
Still Khalifa refused to be deflected.
'The guard at Karnak said he saw someone hurrying away from the scene with something strange on his head. "Like a funny little bird" – that's how he described it. When I was in Jansen's house I found a hat that matched that description hanging on the back of his cellar door. A hat with feathers sticking out of it.'
Hassani exploded into a gale of derisive laughter.
'This is getting more ridiculous by the minute. That guard, if I remember right, was half fucking blind. He could barely see his hand in front of his face, let alone someone fifty metres away. You're clutching at straws, Khalifa! Or feathers, more like. A funny little bird? You're losing the plot, man!'
Khalifa took a last puff on his cigarette and, leaning forward, tamped it out into an ashtray on the edge of the desk.
'There was one other thing.'
'Oh, please tell me,' cried Hassani, clapping his hands together. 'I haven't had a laugh like this in ages.'
Khalifa sat back again.
'Before she died, Schlegel managed to say two words: Thoth, which is the name of the Egyptian god of writing and wisdom—'
'Yes, yes, I know!' huffed Hassani.
'And tzfardeah, which is apparently the Hebrew word for frog.'
Hassani's eyes narrowed.
'So?'
'Jansen had a genetic condition that gave him webbed feet. Like a frog.'
He spoke quickly, trying to get the words out before the expected hoot of ridicule. To his surprise Hassani said nothing, merely crossed back to the window and stood looking out, his back to Khalifa, hands clenched at his sides as if he was holding a pair of invisible suitcases.
'I know that individually none of these things means very much,' Khalifa continued, trying to press home his advantage, 'but when you take them all together you have to stop and think. It's too much of a coincidence. And even if it is all circumstantial there's still the matter of the antiquities in the man's basement. Jansen was dodgy. I know it. I can feel it. He needs to be investigated.'
Hassani's fists were clenched so tight his knuckles had turned white. There was a long pause, then he turned towards Khalifa.
'We are not going to waste any more time on this,' he said slowly, deliberately, the controlled fury of his voice more threatening than any amount of shouting. 'Do you understand? The man is dead, and whatever he was involved in, whatever he's done, it's over. There's nothing we can do about it.'
Khalifa looked at him incredulously.
'And Mohammed Gemal? An innocent man might have been wrongly convicted.'
'Gemal's dead too. There's nothing we can do.'
'His family's still alive. We owe it—'
'Gemal was found guilty in a court of law, for fuck's sake. He openly admitted he'd robbed the old woman.'
'But not that he'd killed her. He always denied that.'
'He committed suicide, for God's sake. What more of a fucking admission do yo
u want?'
Hassani came forward another step.
'The man was guilty, Khalifa! Guilty as sin! He knew it and we knew it. We all knew it. All of us!'
His eyes were wide with fury. There was something else there as well, however. An edge of desperation, fear even. It was not something Khalifa had seen before. He lit another cigarette.
'I didn't.'
'What? What did you say?'
'I didn't think Genial was guilty. I had doubts then, I've had doubts ever since, and now they're stronger than ever. He might have robbed her, but Mohammed Gemal did not murder Hannah Schlegel. I knew it at the time but to my lasting shame didn't have the guts to say so. I think deep down we all knew it – you, me, Chief Mahfouz—'
Hassani stepped forward and slammed his fist on the edge of the desk, sending a sheaf of papers tumbling to the floor.
'That's enough, Khalifa! Enough, do you hear?' His entire body was trembling. Flecks of froth had gathered at the corners of his mouth. 'Your psychological problems are your own business, but I've got a police station to run and I'm not going to re-open a fifteen-year-old case just because some spineless idiot is having a crisis of conscience. You've got no evidence, nothing whatsoever to suggest that Mohammed Gemal did not murder Hannah Schlegel, except in your own mind, which from what you've just been saying about feathers and frogs would appear to be in a far from stable condition. I always knew you weren't made of the right stuff, Khalifa, and this just confirms it. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Piss off and become an archaeologist or whatever it is you always wanted to do and leave me to get on with the job of catching criminals. Real criminals, not imaginary ones.'
Forgetting he was wearing a wig, he reached up and vigorously scratched the top of his scalp, dislodging the hairpiece, which slipped halfway down his forehead. With a furious growl he ripped it off altogether and threw it across the room, stomping back to his desk and sitting down, breathing heavily.
'Just drop it, Khalifa,' he said, his voice weary suddenly, subdued. 'Do you understand me? For everybody's sake. Mohammed Gemal murdered Hannah Schlegel, Jansen died accidentally, and there's no link between the two. I am not re-opening the case.'
His eyes flicked up and then down again, refusing to hold Khalifa's stare.
'Now, there's some hawagaya at the Winter Palace who thinks her jewellery's been stolen and I want you to go and look into it. Forget Jansen and do some proper police work for once in your life.'
He shuffled a pile of papers in front of him, jaw clenched. Khalifa realized it was pointless continuing the argument. He stood and moved towards the door.
'The keys,' growled Hassani. 'I'm not having you nosing around Jansen's house behind my back.'
Khalifa turned, removed Jansen's keys from his pocket and threw them across the room to Hassani, who caught them one-handed.
'Don't cross me on this one, Khalifa. Do you understand? Not on this one.'
The detective paused, then opened the door and strode out into the corridor.
JERUSALEM
Layla could never pass through the Old City's Damascus Gate, with its imposing, twin-towered arch, grime-blackened flagstones and crush of beggars and fruit sellers, without recalling the first time she had come here with her parents, when she was five.
'Look, Layla,' her father had said proudly, squatting beside her and stroking her waist-length black hair. 'Al-Quds! The most beautiful city in the world. Our city. See how bright the stone looks in the morning sunshine; smell the za'atar and the newly baked bread, listen to the call of the muezzin and the cry of the tamar Hindi sellers. Remember these things, Layla, keep them inside you. Because if the Israelis have their way we will all be driven out and al-Quds will become no more than a place we read about in history books.'
Layla had thrown an arm protectively around his neck.
'I won't let them, Daddy!' she had cried. 'I'll fight them. I'm not scared.'
Her father had laughed and, sweeping her up into his arms, pulled her tightly to his breast, which was flat and hard, like marble.
'My little warrior! Layla the Invincible! Oh what a daughter I have been given!'
The three of them had walked right the way around the outside of the city, following the line of the walls, which at the time had struck her as immeasurably huge and threatening, a great tidal wave of stone rearing overhead, and had then passed through the Damascus Gate into the bustling labyrinth of streets beyond. They had drunk Coca-cola at a small roadside cafe, her father puffing on a shisha pipe and talking animatedly with a group of old men, before wandering down al-Wad Road towards the Haram al-Sharif, stopping every now and then so he could point out a bakery where he had eaten cakes as a child, a square where he had played football, an old fig tree growing out of a wall whose fruit he had used to pick.
'Not to eat,' he had explained. 'It was way too hard and bitter. We used to throw them at each other. I got hit right on the nose once. You should have heard the crack! There was blood everywhere!'
He had burst out laughing at the memory, and Layla had laughed too, told him how funny she thought it was, even though the story had horrified her, the thought of her father being hurt. She had loved him so much, so wanted to please him, show that she was not weak or afraid, but strong like him – rave, a true Palestinian.
From the fig tree they had weaved up into a maze of narrow side streets, eventually coming to a spot where the buildings on either side arched right the way over their heads, forming a tunnel. A group of Israeli soldiers had been standing just inside the entrance and had stared at them suspiciously as they walked past.
'See how they look at us,' her father had sighed. 'They make us feel like thieves in our own house.'
He had taken her hand and steered her towards a low wooden doorway surmounted by a lintel carved with an intricate design of grapes and vine stems. A brass plaque declared that it was the Alder Cohen Memorial Yeshiva; a mezuzah was screwed onto the stone jamb to its right.
'Our house,' he had said sadly, reaching out and touching the door. 'Our beautiful house.'
His family – her family – had fled during the fighting of June 1967, leaving the city with just a few treasured possessions and taking refuge in the Aqabat Jabr camp outside Jericho, forty kilometres away. It was only supposed to have been a temporary measure, and they had returned as soon as the fighting had stopped. By then, however, the house had been taken over by the Israelis and no amount of complaining to the city's new masters could get it back again. They had lived as refugees ever since.
'I was born here,' her father had said, running his hand lovingly over the door's gnarled wooden panels, touching the carved lintel. 'So was my father. And his father too, and his father before him. Fourteen generations. Three hundred years. All gone, just like that.'
He snapped his fingers into the air. Looking up, she had seen tears welling in his huge brown eyes.
'It's OK, Daddy,' she had said, hugging him, trying to squeeze all her strength and love into his thin, hard body. 'You'll get it back one day. We'll all live here together. Everything will be OK.'
He had leant down and run his face back and forth through her long black hair.
'If only that was true, my darling Layla,' he had whispered. 'But not all stories have happy endings. Especially for our people. This you will learn as you grow older.'
These and other memories scudded across her mind now as she passed through the gate's gloomy dog-leg and out onto the paved slope of al-Wad Road.
Normally this part of the city would be bustling, with multi-coloured stalls selling flowers and fruit and spices, throngs of shoppers jostling back and forth, boys whizzing past on wooden barrows piled high with meat or refuse. Today, everything was unnaturally quiet – a result, no doubt, of the Warriors of David stand-off further into the city. A couple of old men were sitting beneath the corrugated tin awning of a deserted cafe; to her left a peasant woman was squatting in a shuttered doorway, a forlorn pyramid of limes pi
led in front of her, her face buried in her wrinkled brown hands. Otherwise the only people present were Israeli military and police personnel: a trio of young Giv'ati brigade conscripts hunkered down behind a sandbag emplacement; a unit of border police in green berets lounging around on the steps in front of the cafe; a gaggle of regular police patrolling just inside the gateway, their blue flak-jackets melding into the shadows so that their heads, arms and legs seemed to disappear into an empty hole where their torsos should be.
Layla flashed her press card at one of them, a pretty girl who could have passed as a model had she not been a policewoman, and asked if she could get through to the occupied house.
'The road's blocked further down,' said the girl, eyeing the card disapprovingly. 'Ask there.'
